


This, I do not want

by hope91



Series: This, I.... [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Infidelity, Multi, Not A Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:38:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5173193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope91/pseuds/hope91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Legolas grapples with getting what he had wished for - a formal courtship with Gimli.</p><p>And the consequences of courting someone who doesn't know what he wants. (or, knows what he wants and isn't able to give it up quite so easily).</p>
            </blockquote>





	This, I do not want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telemachus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I'll Get Bi (with a little help from my friends)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4309992) by [telemachus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/pseuds/telemachus). 
  * Inspired by [This, I wish](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3786433) by [hope91](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope91/pseuds/hope91). 



> Please read the tags, this isn't a very happy snippet (at least for something I would write)
> 
> This is the third in our "series" - the first story being "This, I wish."
> 
> And of course: 
> 
> (They put everything out so early in stores, so I'm putting this out very early too :-)
> 
> Happy, Happy Holidays to telemachus! 
> 
> (apologies it's not a very happy story)
> 
> edited to add - there is now a continuation story, and I very much love it - please see note below this story

He has never made a promise of fidelity in our courting, even if I had assumed – _wished_ – it might be so. Even if I had dared not ask, for I feared what the answer would be.

I am no fool, regardless of what he might think of me.

Yet I did not expect _this_ , not in this way. Not _this_.

We have never spoken of his – other – desires. I see our folly now. Yet what would have come of it? I know - I _knew_ \- that I could not give of myself to satisfy his lust.

Not without the commitment that I would need - to be mine, and mine only.

And before me I see my fear - come to life.

Even as he has lavished attention on me beyond what I would have wished for - and only to me, this I know - there is _this_.

Courting is different for elves – more different than I had thought, it seems.

I stand here – frozen – and yet again I curse my ears, I curse my sight.

I see him – in the far distance, where they must believe they are hidden - but not quite so from eyes such as mine.

I see _them_ , and they are – as they would say – _fucking_.

Gimli – as though he was one of my King’s steeds, driving into Éomer-King on all fours below him, and I wonder for how many years they have done this with each other.

And how often when I am returned to my forest, and they are near one another in these lands.

And - a burning question crosses my mind - who else among our friends has Gimli had in this way?

For a moment I consider seeking comfort with Éomer’s Queen – comfort in words, not actions.

Yet then I realize Lothíriel must know of this, at least in generalities, for what I now witness is the truth of what I have heard, that Éomer maintains consorts, as does his Queen.  It is the way of some mannish royalty, I am told, for even if their arrangement was one of love – which theirs was not – they free themselves to enjoy what pleasures they will.

The three of them, then, are happy with _this_ \- I, apparently, am the only one who is not.

The _fucking_ has not stopped – and it enrages me. And as it continues – on and on and on – I realize that what they say of dwarven stamina is true – and I cannot help but wish that I was in Éomer’s place.

And then- I have never felt this before, not in this way - my body is inflamed with what must be the physical desire others speak of.

What is wrong with me that I cannot turn my eyes away from - this betrayal? For even with all of my qualifications, it is nothing but.

I have him – yet I have him not.

And I am no longer certain that I want him.

 _This_ , I do not want.

****

Bloody hell, that was nice. More than nice.

Fuck, nothing like a good fuck - a great fuck.

Too sodding bad that it has to end.

But then I think of the elf – my sweet, fierce, beautiful, sodding elf - and find I don’t mind as much as I thought I would.

Éomer leans on his elbow, staring at me, and I wonder what he’s thinking of.

Fuck, stop lying to yourself, Gimli - you _will_ miss this.

But I'd miss my elf more, and I can deceive him no longer.

In fact, I want more from him. Never fucking thought that would happen - but - it has.

Shit. Elf found his way into my heart.

But first -

“A fitting goodbye,” Éomer says, and draws closer to kiss me.

“One final time, for the sake of memory?” he asks.

I don’t love Éomer as One, but I do care for him, and I know he cares for me.

(It's only later - after he dies - that I'll learn he _loved_ me. Hid it so fucking well.)

Too fucking bad it can’t be more than this. Well, more often.

Wish I would have thought to - expand my horizons - a long time ago. Missed out.

Oh well. Wasn't ready, I suppose.

Not until Lothíriel suggested it - one night when we were - fucking.

Fuck, why not try, I told myself - join her and her King in bed - might even help me figure out if I could - fuck - the elf.

Too serious to experiment with an elf.

Knew I could trust them to be discrete.

Shit. It was so fucking good.

 _This_ is so fucking good.

But my own daft mind has realized I don’t want to let Legolas go.

For all of my dallying - rare now, _careful_ , since I've courted Legolas, but the occasional fuck with Éomer and Lothíriel nonetheless - this has to end.

Éomer’s idea in the first place, feels guilty when he sees how the elf looks at me - and how I look at the elf, apparently.

I feel guilty too, truth be told, and I know I should.

Shit.

Don't sodding deserve Legolas.

So this _fucking_ needs to end – even though I think I'd rather fuck all of them, if I could – but elf won’t stand for that.

And so this is goodbye, as I slide into Éomer one last time.

Already said goodbye to Lothíriel.

Can’t have them all – so can't have  _this_ again.

Elf could sodding well figure it out.

This, I bloody hell don't want.

****

I have seen much over my long centuries.

But never have I felt so shaken.

As though my world has crumbled around me.

 _Fool_ \- the word rings through my mind, over and over.

And then - I wonder - what is wrong with me, that he courts me, yet seeks others?

It was only to please me - he worried of my fading, this I know.

It was all a mistake - my folly, his folly, to think this would please us both.

It has clearly come to pass that it pleases neither of us.

I stay hidden long after the dinner bell has rung through the keep.

I tell myself that we never had such an agreement that he could break it – yet, he _did_ , even if it was unspoken.

Else he would not hide this from me.

The longer I stay away, I know, the more likely it is he will realize something is wrong.

And then I will tell him, and this – courting – will need to end.

I do not want it to end.

Yet it must.

I will not be his fool, even if he would not want me to feel this way – even if he thinks I would be none the wiser.

Even if it has happened only this once – which – I do not believe.

My mind goes on and on and on - just as their fucking did - and tears flow, hot and bitter.

Yet I am not my father's son for nothing.

And so I gather my courage, yet again, and stride into the feasting hall, my Ada’s lessons in royal presence never more valuable than now.

Gimli calls me over from where he sits at the head table, seeming glad to see me.

As he always does - in recent times, he even seems to glow with joy when I am near.

Is it all a farce?

 _No_ , I tell myself, I _know_ that he is glad to see me.

Just as he has been glad to see Éomer, all of these years, my mind whispers.

All of those times I was in Ithilien – Éomer was in his bed.

I am not certain who I feel more betrayed by.

Both of them. And who else has lunged at my heart with a knife of betrayal?

I sit down, and Gimli kisses me on the forehead. He guesses - incorrectly - where I have been. “At last! You have broken the enchantment the stars place upon you!”

That is not all that is broken.

But I simply smile, and ask of his day.

“Today,” he says softly, with a strange gleam in his eye, “I finished crafting something for you. I mined it myself long ago - for this day that I never thought would come to pass, yet here it is. It is important that you know all of it has been done with my own hands, as a gift for you, from the very center of my heart.”

A lewd retort enters my mind - to speak of that which he has been truly mining, or of the stage show of sorts that they _crafted_ today - but I keep it to myself.

He - and Éomer and Lothíriel - look at me with clear anticipation – grinning, even.

I wonder what further humiliation Gimli and Éomer have planned for me.

 _No_ , I tell myself again, they both care for me.

Then _why_ would they betray me?

 _It is no betrayal if it was not promised_ , I tell myself. _It is no betrayal if you knew, deep within, that it would occur. It is instead an unspoken arrangement, of sorts._

Yet the words are false, hollow.

Gimli pulls out a mithril box, beautifully carved – the price of a kingdom’s treasury, I would wager.

“In view of everyone here,” and the din in the hall, lessened at the sight of the mithril box, is entirely dampened with his words, “I would humbly present these to you, to be braided into your hair according to the customs of my people.”

I am completely shocked - the second shattering event of today.

Yesterday, this would be all I would have ever wanted – I know the meaning of this type of beading, essentially a - betrothal, and for Durin's folk, betrothal is as binding as marriage.

But now, after what I have witnessed today? Now _,_ I cannot stop laughing at the farce that is before me.

“Legolas?” he asks, grasping my hand, his face the very picture of worry. “Are you well?”

I know I must look on the verge of hysterical, at least in my manner.

“Worry not, for I am well – though not as well attended as the dear King of the Riddermark.”

My eyes meet Éomer’s, and realization that _I know_ enters his gaze - and then Gimli's, in turn.

I will not give them time to grapple with false reassurances and even falser apologies.

I rise, and leave – more swiftly than I have ever done before.

They do not catch up to me, even as I know there is a pursuit.

To be made even more of a fool - this, I do not want.

****

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Fuck.

What the fuck was I thinking?

What the fuck was I doing?

Éomer's hand grasps my shoulder, and I shake it away.

Then I fucking apologize.

"He will see that your heart is true. I would wager that he will travel homeward and seek comfort with my sister, and she will ease his hurt. We will both make our amends to him. We must."

"Fuck, no he won't - he'd sooner stay with his sodding brothers than show up on Éowyn's doorstep, _because_ she's your bloody sister."

Here we are, in the middle of fucking Rohan, with no fucking way to track Legolas.

It's as though the fucking King of the fucking Eagles swooped down and flew him away.

Shit.

Hopeless. Fucking hopeless.

Even if I found him, he would not listen to one single thing I had to say.

Fuck.

Can't say that I blame him.

Never fucking deserved him.

And now - now my heart will break just as I broke his.

No one to fucking blame but me.

I broke his heart.

The elf, who I sodding promised not to harm.

And now, he's gone.

This, I will never want.

**Author's Note:**

> Series continues in telemachus' [This, I can do](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5216111)
> 
> (and what a fantastic continuation it is!)


End file.
